Courtesy of Stephanie Ross
- Attorney Stephanie Ross and her husband, who works in a grocery store, had triplets in 2021.
- The couple couldn't afford the cheapest $2,400 cost of full-time, professional childcare each month.
- Ross said the only solution was for her 64-year-old mom to move 300 miles and live with the family.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Stephanie Ross, 39, a mom of three from Southern California. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Our triplets — Alice, Claire, and Benjamin — turned 3 last month. They're rambunctious toddlers and take a lot of keeping up with.
It's a lot of work for me and my husband, Andrew, especially because we work full-time. But we're in the privileged position of having my mom provide childcare.
We would not have coped if she had not moved in with us, which meant selling her home 300 miles away. We'd looked into daycares, and the cheapest we could find was $2,400 a month for the three kids.
Although we live in a relatively low-cost area of California, it would have cost the equivalent of a second mortgage.
To be honest, I hadn't really considered the issue before I gave birth in September 2021. It was a very uncomfortable, high-risk pregnancy. I was worried about the babies surviving, period.
Thankfully, they were delivered healthy at 34 weeks and two days. Still, they spent about three weeks in the NICU until they'd gained enough weight to come home.
Andrew, 38, and I were delighted, but the newborn stage was foggy and overwhelming at times. I was on maternity leave and watched them on my own while Andrew, who works full-time in a grocery store deli, was out of the house.
Day care options were too expensive
It's exhausting when you have three infants who are screaming as loud as they possibly can, demanding to be fed, all at the same time. How can you possibly do that as just one person when there are more babies than you have arms?
My mom, Monica, 64, a retired elementary school teacher, had her hands full looking after my 91-year-old grandmother. She'd also cared for my dad, who died of cancer at 70 in 2018, and my grandfather, who was blind and died at 97 in 2020.
Nevertheless, in early November, she and her best friend drove 300 miles from her home in the Bay Area to spend a week helping us out. It was a Godsend, but they saw how frazzled and out of my mind I was.
We looked at day care options during the countdown to my return to work as an attorney. While we're in a cheapish part of California — two hours north of Los Angeles and not in another major city like San Diego — childcare was still a huge cost for three babies.
Some of the centers offer a discount for multiples, but it's not a significant amount — maybe $100 for each successive kid. The most reasonably priced place we found was about $800 a month per infant. "How the hell are we going to manage that?" Andrew said.
Sadly, my grandmother had a stroke and died that winter. Soon after, Mom suggested moving in with us. "I'm alone up there," she said, "I might as well make myself useful."
Courtesy of Stephanie Ross.
She said she wouldn't dream of being paid for childcare. It made financial sense. We had other expenses, including a car payment, because we needed a bigger vehicle with room for three car seats. The car seats and specialized, triplet stroller together were $1,600.
It took Mom about five months to sell her house and settle her affairs before leaving. We managed pretty poorly in the meantime. The triplets were up every two hours at night, and feeding and changing their diapers was physically exhausting. I wasn't eating much of anything because there wasn't time to fix myself a meal.
Mom's arrival in May 2022 was a lifesaver. It was a bit crowded because we have a three-bedroom home, including the nursery. She took the spare room. The dynamic took me back to living in my parent's house as a child, so it felt a bit weird at first.
Luckily, Andrew has a great relationship with my mom. He lost his mom in 2004, and his dad died in 2006 when he was just 18 and 20. Mom is like like a mother to him.
She followed our parenting style. She'd get up in the middle of the night whenever one of the kids was crying. Andrew and I finally started to get some sleep.
We frequently wonder how we'd managed without Mom's help
In August 2023, she used her parents' inheritance to build a 550-square-foot apartment from scratch in our yard. It's just steps away from our back door. It has one bedroom, one bathroom, and a kitchen. The contractors trenched the whole yard, laid the foundation, and hooked it up to electricity and sewer.
Mom moved into the unit in the early summer. It's given her more space to decompress. It wasn't great for her to be an adult woman going from owning your own house to living in your daughter's spare bedroom.
Her hours are usually between 8 a.m. and around the kids' bedtime. She'll make breakfast, lunches, and snacks for them. She'll take them to the park or the zoo. Then, once I'm off work, they'll have dinner before bath and bedtime.
Andrew and I often think about how we might have managed without her. He would probably have had to reduce his work schedule — already unpredictable because it's retail — but the significant drop in income would have hit us hard.
We know we're fortunate because we've heard horror stories from other people who struggle with childcare and finances. More tax credits and subsidies need to be introduced for working parents.
As for Mom, she is happy. She has developed an incredible bond with her grandkids. The other day, I saw her cuddling with Alice while she was watching her favorite show before bed. It's wonderful to have someone so close who we love and trust.
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